Dandenongs from Heidelberg

Charles Conder's Dandenongs from Heidelberg (1889) depicts the Dandenong Ranges — the volcanic hills east of Melbourne visible from the Heidelberg artists' camp — as a distant landscape feature above the Yarra River flats. The Dandenongs were a significant presence in the visual world of the Heidelberg painters, providing vertical interest to an otherwise flat landscape panorama. Conder's view from Heidelberg toward the distant ranges participates in the group's project of establishing the visual character of the Australian landscape on its own terms — distinct from European landscape but equally worthy of serious artistic attention.

Conder renders the distant Dandenongs with the atmospheric treatment appropriate to a remote landscape feature — the ranges appear as soft blue-grey silhouettes on the horizon, softened by the eucalyptus haze that characterizes the Australian atmosphere. The foreground Yarra flats are handled with more immediate observation. His palette is characteristically bleached by Australian light — the specific pale blue of the Australian sky, the grey-green of eucalyptus scrub — distinguishing this work clearly from any European landscape.